Interview: Emile from Fat Lama explains peer-to-peer rental

The sharing economy is growing all the time, and we like to feature companies operating sharing services in different spaces. This week, we caught up with Tim Slater, Marketing Manager at Fat Lama.

No, it’s not an insult, but rather a new website that allows you to rent belongings from others. Tim explains…

How does Fat Lama work?

Fat Lama is a fully-insured peer to peer rental platform. In essence, it’s a simple concept which in practise is even simpler. If you need to rent a drone for your holiday, a camera for a shoot or an arcade machine for your party, Fat Lama is the place just to do that. In fact, if you need to rent (almost) anything, Fat Lama can accommodate.

If you’re looking to borrow, you can begin by browsing our listings or requesting an item. Let us know how long you’d like to rent for and once the lender approves your request, we’ll process your payment and you can arrange a convenient handover.

Lending through Fat Lama is just as easy. Upload some pictures of your item, set a rental price and availability; we’ll verify your ID and you’ll be contacted by someone looking to borrow!

Who can take part?

Anyone can! At the moment, Fat Lama is focused on London but we’ll be available in the rest of the UK very soon!

Where does the name ‘Fat Lama’ come from… is this actually anything to do with llamas?

Absolutely nothing to do with llamas… We wanted something a little different and it also gave us a great excuse to take two real 7ft llamas to a Shoreditch tech recruitment fair last year!

How do you ensure people are renting safe equipment?

Every item which our users list on the site is stringently checked before it’s approved. Whilst you can rent just about anything you can think of on the platform, there are a few exceptions, including guns, chainsaws, chemicals and your grandma…

Do people really make and save money through Fat Lama?

Yeah people do really make money! We’ve had a lot of users share their stories with us. We’ve seen a lot of photographers invest in some really fancy cameras and, by lending them out on Fat Lama from time to time, the cameras have already paid for themselves.

We’ve also had some great conversations with people who’ve borrowed from other users on Fat Lama – like Tilly, who rented party equipment for her Halloween party. They’ve told us (and we know from experience) how frustrating it can be to start planning an event to find you’ll have to buy everything from sound systems to projectors. What our users value is accessibility outside of a regular rental shop’s working hours, the convenience of renting from a neighbour and the cheaper rates that going peer-to-peer allows.

How can people get involved?

Head over to Fat Lama and start browsing! There’s a pretty extensive range of stuff – from paella pans to VR headsets – so hopefully something for everyone. You might even think of a few Christmas gifts which you haven’t properly put to use yet – list them on Fat Lama and start earning a little extra pocket money…

So, there you have it. If you need use of a lawnmower, or a speaker system, or a toastie maker, FatLama’s the place to check!

Do you have a sharing economy idea that you’d like to share on our blog? Get in touch with Lex, our Marketing Manager, or let us know in the comments below.